Historical files too large/how to store on external storage

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keenuo
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 5:07 am

Historical files too large/how to store on external storage

Post by keenuo »

Hello,

I recently purchased the standard version of Tickstory and I'm using MT4. I attempted to download the past two years for EUR/USD, USD/JPY and USD/CHF for 1hr, 4hr and daily charts. However, it's taken all night to download and is close to 90%. However, I'm now getting a disk full as its many GB of data.

I'm using VM software on my MacBook laptop and as a result, have less than normal disk space. Is there any way I can store the historical data on an external hard drive and have it still work directly with MT4. If not, any other suggestions as back testing has now become a very cumbersome chore as I would typically need to test on the different time period and currency pairs.

Many Thanks.

tickstory
Posts: 4883
Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2013 12:27 am

Re: Historical files too large and take too long to download

Post by tickstory »

Hi Keenuo,

Exporting tick data does require time and disk space due to the voluminous nature of the tick data. Regarding space, you have several options to save space by storing data on an external drive:

1) Install Tickstory on the external drive and then point your "Dukascopy store location" to this external drive. This will store all the raw downloaded tick data to your external drive. See https://tickstory.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=919.

2) Install MT4 on an external drive and use "portable mode" which stores the MT4 installation & data in the same folder (on a drive of your choosing). This means that all the MT4 data files (HST + FXT) will reside on your external drive. To do this, see https://tickstory.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=312

3) When exporting, you can select "Filter duplicate ticks" which will reduce the exported data a little. Make sure, however, that your EA's strategy wont be affected by this change.

You already seem to be exporting only the time-frames you need which is a good practice. For the benefit of other readers: make sure you are only exporting time-frames that you are actually using. For example, if you are only testing in the 15-minute time-frame, then only select this time-frame when exporting. To free up space, you can delete FXT files/time-frames that you are no longer using (there is a section in the manual describing the structure of the MT4 database if you need further information).

Hope this helps.

keenuo
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Sep 06, 2017 5:07 am

Re: Historical files too large/how to store on external stor

Post by keenuo »

Thanks for your quick reply.

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